Addressing concerns that BTO prices may be dancing hand-in-hand with resale HDB flats, which have been on the rise for the past few quarters, Mr. Khaw promises to provide abundant and affordable housing to match the projected 6.9 million population of 2030. He says that as long as ‘property remains hot’, the new pricing policy of de-linking BTO flats to resale HDB flats will continue. It looks like this policy may have to stay for quite some time yet, as market feedback shows that prices are still going strong and have barely shown signs of letting up.
Industry players are not expecting the new HDB flats to take too much away from the resale flat market. SLP International’s head of research Nicholas Mak says that low prices of new flats may ‘effectively slow down the resale market but will not stop or reverse rising trends yet’. However, Mr. Khaw did mention that although BTO prices will be priced differently from resale flats, there will be differences within its own category. He says HDB will not be pricing its new flats ‘haphazardly’ but instead, buyers can expect prices of BTO flats in mature estates to be up to 40 per cent more than those in outlying suburbs.

This keeping of prices low does come at a price. Taxpayers are essentially paying for the gap between new flats and resale flats. Because HDB purchases land from SLA (the Singapore Land Authority), land prices are based on the prices of resale flats in the vicinity, thus if resale flat prices are rising, land is more expensive, but if new flat prices are still kept low, the amount difference is made up by government subsidies, which indirectly comes from the taxpayers’ coffers.

ContributoriProperty.com SingaporeiProperty.com.sg hosts the most comprehensive database of over 50,000 properties for sale & rent in Singapore. The Singapore's leading property website powers the real estate channels of MSN, SG-House, PropertyZone.sg & StreetSine.com.

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